1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lamp fixing member, a backlight assembly having the lamp fixing member and a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) apparatus having the lamp fixing member. More particularly, the present invention relates to a lamp fixing member for easily and stably fixing a lamp, a backlight assembly having the lamp fixing member and a LCD apparatus having the lamp fixing member.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (“LCD”) apparatus, in general, displays images using liquid crystals. The LCD apparatus is a flat panel display apparatus. The LCD apparatus has various merits such as a thin thickness, a low driving voltage, low power consumption, etc. Therefore, the LCD apparatus has been widely used in various fields.
The LCD apparatus is a non-emissive typed display apparatus. Therefore, the LCD apparatus requires a backlight assembly that supplies an LCD panel with a light.
The backlight assembly includes a lamp generating light. For example, a plurality of cold cathode fluorescent lamps (“CCFLs”) having a long cylindrical shape may be employed by the backlight assembly as the lamp. According of the position of the lamp, the backlight assembly is classified into an edge illumination type backlight assembly and a direct illumination type backlight assembly.
In case of the edge illumination type backlight assembly, one or two lamps are disposed adjacent to the side surface of a transparent light guide plate. The edge type backlight assembly reflects the light using one surface of the light guide plate and emits the light to the LCD panel.
In case of the direct illumination type backlight assembly, a plurality of the lamps is disposed under the LCD panel, a diffusion plate is disposed over the lamps and a reflective plate is disposed under the lamps, so that the direct type backlight assembly reflects and diffuses the light emitted from the lamps. The edge illumination type backlight assembly is used for a relatively small-screen LCD apparatus as a notebook computer, a monitor, etc. On the other hand, the direct illumination type backlight assembly is used for a large-screen LCD apparatus with a high luminance.
In case of the direct type illumination backlight assembly, according to the bigger LCD apparatus, the lamps become longer and the diffusion plate becomes bigger. Therefore, the backlight assembly includes a lamp fixing member that fixes the lamp and supports the diffusion plate.
The lamp fixing member includes a lamp fixing portion and a diffusion plate supporting portion. The lamp fixing portion fixes the lamp and the diffusion plate supporting portion supports the diffusion plate the upper part of the lamp fixing portion may have a clip shaped in a circle that is partially opened such that an opened portion is less than a diameter of the lamp.
With the structure stated above, the automated process of assembling the lamp is impossible, so that the lamp is combined with the lamp fixing member by hand. Therefore, an assembling process becomes complex and a time for assembling the backlight assembly becomes longer.